


If At First

by pherede



Category: The Hobbit RPF
Genre: Emotional Constipation, Happy Ending, Heartbreak, M/M, Phone Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-12
Updated: 2013-12-12
Packaged: 2018-01-04 11:05:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1080285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pherede/pseuds/pherede
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The breakup is painful. The phone calls are worse. Lee can't take much more of this; and Richard wants what Lee can't bring himself to give.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If At First

It’s not like this is the first breakup he’s been through. It’s just the first time the breakup takes him by surprise.

Lee wonders if he’s going crazy. Of course breakups are supposed to hurt. Who lets their lover go without a fight? And what fight doesn’t end with someone broken?

"No, nothing like that," he says through numb lips. "I just think it would be awkward for both of us to attend, that’s all. I don’t want to make things difficult. It was a mutual thing."

A mutual thing. Richard ever quieter, awake at four in the morning, staring into his coffee without a word. The ache of desertion in Lee’s chest, the bleeding-out of a severed connection, the churning knowledge that once again he wasn’t quite enough.

There had been no real argument. They had never lived together, after all— only slept together, and gone home in the morning, and texted all day between. One day Richard was there, with his quiet confidence, with his earnest longing to comprehend; the next day he had simply stopped being there, his eyes distant and his smile crooked, an empty figure that would not look at Lee.

And Lee has not always had words to say what he means. He can feel things to his bones, he can let himself want and hope and even love— but there is something standing in the path, something huge and dark and terrifying that steals the voice from his throat. 

 

The closest he has come to saying it was in the movement of his mouth on Richard’s neck, was in the wordless syllables that he spilled between them in bed. He cannot say it,  _I love you_ , the phrase that he means every time he breathes out; so he had let it burn in his eyes when he looked at Richard, let it be the force that pounded against his diaphragm and drove his helpless noises of delight and need and pleasure out from his throat when Richard fucked him.

There will be no more chances to say it.

So Lee cancels on the press junkets. It’s hard enough to get out of bed, and he has filming to get started on soon. Time to move on.

Time to remember how to sleep.

He calls Richard at two in the morning, drunk. Richard answers, and Lee forgets everything he meant to say and drops the phone.

Thirty minutes later he calls again, and Richard doesn’t answer.

Thirty minutes after that, there’s a text:  _I knew you would hang up._

He ponders that text all morning instead of running lines, even though there’s less than a week until his agent wants him ready. Why on earth would Richard expect him to stop communicating? 

So he texts Richard back that night:  _I dropped the phone. I didn’t mean to cut you off._

There’s no answer, and Lee goes to bed, only to wake up in the quiet dark— eyes bleary in the blind-streaked light of the streetlamp— to the buzz of his phone, which is ringing.

"Richard," he answers it. "You’re up late." 

"Haven’t been sleeping much," says Richard, voice tight and tired and just as beautiful as Lee remembers. 

"Me neither," says Lee, who was asleep a moment ago, and because the habits of caring die hard: "You okay?"

Richard takes his time answering, and Lee lets him breathe, where normally he supposes he would fill the awkward space with banter, with laughter. He doesn’t expect Richard to answer, because normally Richard’s silences last longer than Lee’s tolerance for silence; but right now it hurts too much for him to speak.

And finally Richard speaks. “I’m alone in my room,” he says, and there is a tentative question in his voice. Lee still doesn’t speak. He’s tried talking, and all it got him was Richard calling him from hundreds of miles away.

"I’m naked," adds Richard, very quietly. Lee’s mouth goes dry. 

This is cruel. He hasn’t touched Richard in weeks, let alone seen him in bed, laid bare. He wonders if Richard is trying to torture him.

He wonders if Richard would laugh at him, if he could see Lee now: still groggy, growing hard, swallowing convulsively in lust and sorrow, tongue arching with the words he still perversely wants to say.

"Lee?" Richard’s voice is careful, measured as always. Lee can already hear in his tone what he expects: a click, a dial tone, silence. As if Lee weren’t one bitten lip from a groan, just from hearing Richard speak.

"I’m here," says Lee, when he trusts his voice again. "Why are you telling me this?"

Soft sounds emerge from the phone, the sounds of sheets and skin, the movement of a body that Lee cannot touch. “I just wanted you to know,” murmurs Richard. “I thought you might like it.”

Lee chokes back something that’s either a sob or a moan. “You’re killing me,” he says, willing his hand to stay where it is on his chest. “Richard—”

"You still want me," says Richard, not gloating at all. He is relieved. "You want me. Say it."

"God," says Lee, screwing his eyes shut. His hand shifts, rests heavy on the length of his stiff cock. "Yes, Richard. I still want you."

Click. Silence. The phone goes dead.

Lee hurts so much he forgets how to breathe.

______________

Two nights later, the same thing, but earlier. This time Richard’s breath is a little short, his voice hoarse. “Lee, you still awake?”

It’s only midnight. Of course Lee is still awake. “I was about to go to bed,” he says, from the armchair where he has his feet kicked up.

"I’m in bed now," says Richard. "I’m still alone. Lee, I’m hard as a rock."

It’s like a knife in his chest. “Well, thanks,” says Lee, and lets the bitterness rise in his voice. “I’m hard now too.”

"Do you want me to do anything," says Richard.  _Come back,_  thinks Lee.  _Stop calling me. Stop hurting me._  “To myself,” Richard clarifies, and Lee clasps one hand over his eyes.

Richard’s breath is loud in the silence, and after a few moments he adds: “I’m touching myself, Lee, I’m rubbing my palm up and down my cock—”

"You can’t  _tell_  me these things,” barks Lee, dropping his hand from his eyes to adjust the constriction of his pants. “Fuck, Richard, we’re not together anymore.”

"I know that," says Richard. Lee can’t tell if RIchard’s voice is cracking or if he’s jacking off, if he’s starting to lose focus in the friction of his own hand. "I know it’s over. I… I just." There is a definite sound, a rhythmic flutter. "Wanted to know it. I only ever knew when you were— were fucking me—"

"God  _damn_  it, Richard,” whispers Lee.

"Tell me you want me," says Richard, gasping, the rhythm of his stroking clearly audible in his speech. "Tell me."

Lee bucks up against his hand. The pressure feels like guilt, like chastisement. “I want you so much, I want you, I wish you were here—”

There is a sound from the phone, a familiar groan, a shudder beneath. Lee knows the sound of Richard’s orgasm like he knows the sound of breaking glass or his own breath. It seems to last forever. Lee feels a drop of hot damp seeping through his jeans, beneath his palm. His eyes burn to the point of pain.

"Jesus, Richard," he says, not even trying to disguise the sorrow in his voice. "Why’d you leave me?"

No response for a moment, only heavy staggered breathing as Richard struggles to recover. Then: “You only  _want_ me,” says Richard.

"I need you," says Lee, hoping it’s enough, surprised at how easily he makes himself vulnerable. 

The line goes dead.

_____________________________

Lee calls Richard the next night. It’s three in the morning. Richard doesn’t answer.

It’s hard to pull himself off without picturing Richard, but Lee tells himself he manages it, and presses the heel of his hand into his eye so hard that he sees black spots when he comes. His palm is streaked with tears afterwards, but it’s easy to pretend he doesn’t feel a thing.

_____________________________

Almost a week later, Richard calls again. Lee is exhausted; readthroughs today were brutal and he hates the latest turn this role has taken, and it’s fucking three in the morning and Lee is lying facedown on the couch in his underwear, not expecting this at all.

Not even a pretense at a normal greeting this time. “Remember the second time we fucked,” says Richard, strained, halting. “You fingered me for twenty minutes before you even touched my cock.”

"This is revenge, isn’t it," says Lee, but he was hard to the point of weeping the moment he saw Richard’s name on the screen, and the weight of his body feels good pressing his cock into the upholstery, so he shifts his weight just a little and slips his free hand down between to rub, very gently, to rut against the smoothness of his palm.

"The whole time you kept staring at me," says Richard. "I thought— it was a fling— I thought it was over after the first time. But— you stared, my god, I thought you were trying to eat me up with your eyes."

"You’re fucking beautiful," says Lee, as if he hasn’t said this a thousand times.

Richard’s laugh is frustrated, but it’s still the same hungry chuckle that set Lee yearning all those months ago. Lee closes his fingers around himself, ignoring the twinge of his wrist.

"I mean it," continues Lee. "You should see the way your mouth opens when you’re being fucked. You get my fingers in you and you just… you fall apart, Rich, you grab at everything around you like you’re falling. You’re the most beautiful thing on earth."

They both know that Lee has never stopped saying this. The day before Richard left, Lee told him that the shape of Richard’s ankle made him forget how to talk.

 _Not true,_  Richard had said, wry and distant.  _You’re very articulate. You say just what you mean_.

And now Lee is completely out of his mind, wordless in his lust, listening to the sounds of Richard doing god-knows-what to himself, thrusting into his own hand with his lips parted and his face taut with something like pain.

"I’m fucking myself with my hand," says Richard at last, finding a lull between tortured breaths. "I’ve got… four fingers in myself, I’m fucking wide open, I need a cock in me, Lee."

It’s like drowning. It’s like being stabbed, and being asked not to make things awkward while bleeding to death. “Then go find someone’s cock,” hisses Lee, “and  _get fucked_ , and stop calling me to remind me that you don’t love me.”

There is abrupt silence.

Lee can’t even bring himself off. It hurts too much to move.

_______________________

It’s another week before Richard calls him again. This time it’s broad daylight, and Lee is wolfing tacos in his kitchen as he reviews material between meetings, because there’s an interview later and he wants to eat now while he’s not nauseated with stress. Skipping the press junkets for  _Hobbit_  was actually a really bad idea, and his agent has been driving him like a rented mule through every publicity op they can find.

Of course, the moment his phone rings Lee can’t imagine eating another bite. “Richard,” he says, fully expecting something filthy in return, and is surprised to hear traffic and the conversations of passers-by in the background.

"I want you to do something for me," says Richard, without preamble. 

 _Depends on what it is,_  thinks Lee, but instead he says: “Tell me what you want.”

The sound of Richard licking his lips. “I want you to come for me,” says Richard, as if this is absolutely normal, as if the words don’t unleash a tidal wave of familiar confusion and anguish in Lee’s chest.

"Too bad," says Lee, feeling his mouth go dry despite the water he’s been drinking. "Anything else you wanted?"

"All sorts of things," replies Richard, unfazed. "Things you can’t even give me. For now, though, I just want you to fuck your hand like you’re fucking me, and tell me what you feel."

 _Like you’re gone forever_ , Lee wants to say, but he doesn’t trust his voice, and he feels the absence of Richard like someone has cut the shape of his ex-lover out of his flesh. He unzips his jeans, cups himself in one hand. “What am I supposed to feel,” he says, rounding the kitchen counter to sprawl out on the couch, hoping his voice sounds nonchalant for a guy with his cock in his hand.

"I wish I knew," murmurs Richard. "I want you to tell me. I can’t read your mind."

Lee strokes himself, one long smooth motion. “I feel like you left me,” he says. “I feel naked just telling you that. I feel like you hurt me so much I could throw up just thinking about it.”

"That’s not what I meant," says Richard, but he is pensive, quiet, the thirst for intimacy rich in his undertones. "I mean what you  _feel_.”

"I feel my hand," replies Lee, feeling foolish. "It’s not the same as feeling you. I miss you, Rich."

"You miss me," echoes Richard. "You want me, you need me, you  _can’t fucking say it_. I know you mean it. Say it.”

Understanding is like a kick in the face, like a knife in the heart. This is why Richard left him; this is why, for all his worship and all his adoration, he couldn’t keep Richard with him. He mouths the words:  _I love you_. He still can’t fucking say it.

"I’m gonna come," he says instead, because it’s true, because Richard’s voice makes his own skin into something alive and golden and meant for pleasure instead of mere protection. 

Richard huffs in derision. “Easy way out,” he says. “Don’t you dare.”

Lee groans. It’s all he’s wanted for months, Richard’s voice while he spills against his belly, anything besides Richard tormenting him with the sounds of his own skin and the knowledge that Lee can’t _have._ "What the  _fuck_  do you want from me,” he says, knowing the answer and hating it.

"I used to see it on your face," says Richard. "I used to see your mouth moving while you rode me. I thought it would be enough."

"I can’t," says Lee, and his voice breaks into frustration, into choking. "It would have been a waste anyway. You left me."

Richard laughs, but it’s not his easy lovely chuckle. It’s hollow, regretful, desperate. “I tried to leave you,” he says.

Tried. He  _tried_. Lee is losing his mind. “You did a really fucking good job of leaving me,” he spits into the phone, jacking himself harder, willing himself to come and pass out before Richard can break his heart again. “Great job. Fucking perfect, actually.”

"I was scared out of my mind," says Richard. "I thought you were going to ruin my life." The words are like nails driven through the vicious sensation of Lee pulling at himself. "I told myself— you said such beautiful things, you said everything that came into your mind, but you never said you loved me. I didn’t want to lie to myself."

Lee’s palm is like a brand, but he feels his throat convulsing, a sound twisting in him that robs him of all thought and sensation but grief.

Richard plows ahead. “And then I realized, I guess, that I can’t even… I can’t live without seeing it on your face. The words aren’t so important, Lee. I understand. It’s enough for me to say it: I love you, Lee, I love you and I am in love with you, I can’t keep going without you. I’ll take whatever you can give me. I’m sorry.”

Lee is gasping, writhing, on the brink, but it seems so strange and distant now to think of his body’s needs when he wants so much more. “Rich,” he says, stumbling over the sounds, “if you’re fucking with me, I need you to understand I can’t take it anymore.”

"I’m not fucking with you," says Richard, and there is a soft tentative knock at the door, which opens; there is the shape of a shoulder, an arm, the apprehensive posture of a man hoping for absolution; there is an intake of breath that Lee distantly recognizes of his own, the stilling of his hand, the awful hope that feels like a crushing blow to his chest.

It’s him. It’s really him. He’s holding a duffle bag, he means to stay awhile, he hasn’t shaved in what looks like days and he’s so beautiful that Lee can’t catch his breath. “You’ll figure it out eventually,” says Richard, and the door closes and the bag hits the floor and Lee lifts his arms to wrap them around Richard’s shoulders and waist, to cup the nape of Richard’s warm neck, to pull him down onto Lee’s body where Lee can kiss him, where he can groan into his throat and thrust against his body and ruck up his disheveled half-undone clothing and mouth along his jaw the thing he could never say, in whispers that even he can hardly hear:  _I love you_ , he says, and it is very hard at first but it can hardly hurt as much as losing Richard, can it?

"I love you," he repeats, and this time it is stronger. "Even if you leave me again, you deserve to know it. I love you, okay? Is that what you want?"

Richard’s face rests along his cheek, breathing deeply like a man at the end of a hard run. “Well,” he says, after a long pause, “there is one more thing I want.”

"What the hell," begins Lee, but Richard just laughs— and it is deep, rich, lovely, all the warmth that Lee remembers— and his hips rock against Lee’s, and Lee feels his face change and the meaning behind the words come over him like a warm blanket and he wonders that he could ever have felt vulnerable over three stupid words when his face was shouting this the whole time. "I do love you," he adds, because it’s easier every time he says it, and because his words are evaporating in the heat of his body and he can’t bear to leave it unsaid again.

Richard’s expression is so wistful and so hopeful that Lee can’t keep himself from kissing it even as he comes, gasping into the heat of Richard’s mouth, rutting against his belly; the words hover between them and hold them together, sweeter than the tremors that wrack Lee’s body, heavier than the weight of Richard on top of him, and Richard’s lips move against Lee’s gasping mouth.

"Well, obviously," he whispers, and he smiles.


End file.
